Got to do a short TED talk...

I was chosen by curator Chris Anderson to deliver a short talk during TED2009 on the coping strategies we've developed to deal with how "available" technology has enabled us to become.

I talk about an emergent 'culture of availability' - a culture that doesn't just allow or enable always-on connectivity, it expects it.  The more connected we CAN be, I argue, the higher the obligation/expectation to reciprocate when someone seeks to connect with us. 

Consider the "acceptable lag" between receiving a voicemail and returning a call, receiving an email and replying, receiving a text message and replying or receiving a direct tweet and replying.

With all this connection comes the danger that in our mad rush to be everywhere, we end up  nowhere.  That the technology we use to connect, actually separates and isolates.

I've been meaning to post that presentation and the commentary behind it, but TED.com beat me to the punch and put the talk up today.  Here it is:

BTW - here's a pic of the TED theater, when I came in the day before for a soundcheck and left with my innards frozen in icy terror.

 

Comments

[renny]

damn straight I was nervous. terrified, a better word. so to your question: I was not speaking for advertising in the talk. No one asked me to.

I see many technologies that create or enable distance - at a time where our survival as a species depends on being closer.

But I am confident that human beings will hack new tech and freight it with the emotion so many technologies lack when they begin, when they are still used for what their creators intended, not what the users will ultimately decide.

SMS is a great example. It was never intended to be ruled as a viable divorce method under Sharia law - but it is now.

[whit537]

Renny,

Your talk was nice. You come across as very Human. Nervous, maybe, even?

You're saying something everybody knows, but you say it. How does what you say relate to your career in advertising? It feels to me like there is a tension, maybe?

You ask us to make technologies that make us more human. Maybe advertising follows whatever technologies are available, uses whatever channels exist, is passive, downstream. Is it as easy as that? Does your work make us more human? How?

I was trying to figure out if I was hearing Renny the Human or Renny the Advertiser.

chad

P.S. That guy on the bike is insane.